How Big Tobacco helped design Lunchables—and gave birth to the ultra-processed food industry

In the 1980s, Big Tobacco started playing a major role in America’s food industry, buying up companies like General Foods, Kraft, and Nabisco. And that role, according to a new study, included using research and development from the cigarette business to make ultra-processed foods, such as the enduringly popular Lunchables brand of snacks. Such foods, the study reveals, were engineered “for consumer pleasure and appeal” with help from cigarette-related research on flavor engineering, pa...